Protest Signage

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I was wondering if any of you know about the legality of protest signage. Every week on days that abortions are performed there are all sorts of giant graphic abortion photos up on Point Street. This is problematic because A) its on the posted city route to the childrens museum and B) its the way we take our daughter to school. Anyhow, rather than just holding them they are bungee-cording them to sign posts, parking meters, etc, and there is no one around. I was under the impression that for free speech laws to apply they need to be physically holding them or need to be on private property.

Update: Before I hit send my wife called back and said she called the police and they confirmed that there must be people present & are sending someone over to address the issue.

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Wow, that's good. I used to work over in Davol and that was part of my walk to work. There was usually one old man standing out there and he would be holding a sign, and have others attached to stuff.

I would indeed assume that you cannot, without a special permit, post a sign on public property, and not without the owners permission on private, and maybe would even need a permit for that, it would in effect be vandalism.

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I've seen those and didn't know that was a regular occurance. That must cross some sort of obscenity law of some sort, it's absolutely disgusting and in horrible taste. I know they think they're just and that they're trying to shock people into some sort sudden realization but I don't think they realize that they're more the monsters for potentially traumatizing living children than women that know they can't properly raise a child are for making the decision to not birth one.

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I've seen those and didn't know that was a regular occurance. That must cross some sort of obscenity law of some sort, it's absolutely disgusting and in horrible taste. I know they think they're just and that they're trying to shock people into some sort sudden realization but I don't think they realize that they're more the monsters for potentially traumatizing living children than women that know they can't properly raise a child are for making the decision to not birth one.

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but I don't think they realize that they're more the monsters for potentially traumatizing living children than women that know they can't properly raise a child are for making the decision to not birth one.

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Funny- my husband and I were just cursing those f**kers as we drove by today. There were two old guys bungee cording their signs up. Sanctimonious g***amned . . . ah, I guess that is not the kind of politics we're supposed to get into on this forum, so I'll leave it at that.

I am pretty sure there is a law about how close they are allowed to be to Planned Parenthood, too. For those of us who care, maybe we can turn this into a daily call to the police, if there are actually laws being broken. Anyone know where to look up the laws about this?

Liam- you said: "I can't understand why someone who is supposedly protesting "for the children" would want to scare and traumatize actual kids." I don't exactly think these guys do this out of some deep love & respect for children, ya know?

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Those sign holders are crazy. I recently drove a friend of mine to Planned Parenthood on abortion day so she could get birth control. They actually have PP escorts that come right up to your car and walk you into the building the whole time telling you to ignore the people with the signs yelling things at you. It was an awful experience, I wanted to punch this one guy and yell SHE'S NOT HAVING AN ABORTION AND IM NOT THE BOYFRIEND ANYWAY!

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I'm quite surprised that Brown University students, for example, will get all hot and bothered about selling the bookstore to B&N enough to organize rallies on campus but that there's no student counterdemonstrations to these folks harrassing people using PP...

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I really don't think it's worth the counter protest. People can't really be expected to suspend their own lives to counter what is usually one quack. A counter protest gives a sort of legitimacy to the original protest.

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Tangentially related, one of the RIPTA stops near my house had one of the signs for the PP Express. A couple of weeks ago, someone had smashed the glass, torn the paper into shreads, and defiled it. I'm not quite sure if this person was:

a) A religious zealot protesting contraception and abortion

b) A racist idiot who was mad that the poster depicts an inter-racial couple

c) A random idiot who thought it would be fun to practice random vandalism